The current plan with the Deathwing raid is to have it all available immediately upon release.

The Deathwing raid will be smaller than Ulduar with many phases or encounters with Deathwing.

Patch 4.4 will bring a world event before the next expansion.

The next expansion should be released with a "meaningful difference" in the release timeline compared to previous expansions.

Future Changes and Features

Paid Guild Transfers are still in the works.

Battle.net account wide achievements are still in the works.

Armor dyes are unlikely to be included in the game, but mount customization is a possibility.

Class Quests are unlikely to return due to the amount of time it takes to design and implement them.

No gold sinks are coming soon because of the large variance in the amount of gold players have.

A real money Auction House is not planned for WoW.

Other Notes

RealID LFD grouping was originally going to be paid because of the similarity to Paid Character Transfers, but they decided it was the right thing for the game to offer it for free.

Cross realm RealID grouping is going to be expanded to cover Battlegrounds as well. Depending on how well that works it could be expanded to raids and rated battlegrounds.

There has been a drop in gold farming because phishing and hacking accounts is more profitable.

New players are still having trouble with the first 30 minutes and five levels of the game, more hand holding is coming for very basic concepts like moving, questing, fighting, and looting.

Blizzard did a lot to save time while getting Cataclysm finished, but ended up happy with the final result.

The shared 10 and 25 man lockout has had both positive and negative effects, it solved the need to do both every week but removed some extra content that could be done every week. Some changes will be made in the future to make everyone happier with the solution.

Blue Posts

Originally Posted by Blizzard Entertainment

Transmogrification of Heirlooms
I'd like to provide an update on this statement I made. It turns out that Heirlooms will be eligible targets for Transmogrification. Also (and this applies to all Transmogrified items), trading, mailing, auctioning or depositing an item in a guild bank will remove the Transmogrified art, returning the item in question to its original artwork. So, while you won't have to stare at the same old Heirlooms the whole time you're leveling, you won't be able to send a set of Heirlooms that have been Transmogrified with tier 13 art to your level 10 alt.

[...] Mainhand can only be applied to mainhand, and offhand can only be applied to offhand. This is partially due to the restrictions on certain types of weapon art.

Again, these are our first tentative steps with Transmogrification, and there's room for modifying the rules later on after the system is introduced, and we see how things shake out. Heck, the rules aren't even quite set in stone right now, and might change further before the system is introduced. (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

Transmogrification as a Gold Sink
The gold cost for Transmogrification hasn't been set in stone, but it's likely to be very similar to Reforging, meaning it'd scale with item level (probably the level of the item actually equipped). (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

Transmogrification Options
The gear also still has to have stats aside from armor on it. That means that there are a lot of white or grey items that might not be available initially when Transmogrification goes live.

As an aside, a lot of people have been asking about hiding shoulders, belts, etc. For now, it's looking pretty unlikely that we'll offer the option to hide anything aside from helm and cloak. (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

Fan Art Update
The Blizzard Fan Art Section has been updated with five new pieces of fan artwork set within the Warcraft universe.

What on earth are you talking about? Back in vanilla ALL QUESTS SUCKED COMPARED TO TODAY. But now look at the DK starter area, that was pretty cool wasn't it?

Oh 6 year old class quest sucked (apparently you never did the Warlock ones) that means class quests will always suck........this is the dumbest "reasoning" I have heard all week.

I do NOT like the old class quests because mine (apparently you never did the Warlock paladin ones)ALL sucked; mount quest was boring and just expensive back then. And the gear/spell quests were also not special. Doing a quest that has your friends 15 minutes waiting for you while levelling because you need item/spell X is NOT cool.

About the DK quest lines: yes, agree, I loved them the first time. However, I see players asking for class quests, not class zones with class factions, class cities and class... You get the point. Also, the DK zone proves my third point.

Class quests are a huge time sink, with all that money and effort wasted for a single run for just 1 class. And THAT is my real problem with class quests.
Why the hell would you make an investment like the DK starting zone for every single class? So we can all play trough it just once? That doesn't seem to be a very good model for an MMO.

Originally Posted by Baikalsan

You heard it here first guys! Blizzard needs to remove legendaries + their chains and also everything that is fun but not efficient because that is the most important thing when playing a game.......being efficient.....

Oh come on, yeh, working on a legendary with a guild is the EXACT SAME THING as having a warlock specific class chain with some kind of epic at the end. THE EXACT SAME. Come on man, wake up.

I wouldn't be surprised if said "meaningful difference" allowed them to go through and fix up some of the still-broken parts of Cata. Most notable I can think of off the top of my head are finishing construction of Orgrimmar and putting out that damn fire on top of Stormwind's gate from Deathwing (that is some fire, lemme tell ya). Or maybe they'll just leave it like that for the hell of it, I dunno.

Each expansion has pushed the timeline in WoW forward about one year or so (there's not a very concrete timeline out there, but pieced together, Classic took place 4 years after WCIII, BC 5, WotLK 6, Cata 7). A "meaningful difference" would have to be quite a bit longer than that. I doubt it'll mean a revamped Outland (especially since they just revamped a major portion of the game in Cata), but it wouldn't hurt. Still, we'd need a new storyline reason for going to Outland, and by extension Northrend, to justify a remake.

Wrath was released 22 months after BC. Cat was released 25 months after Wrath. "Meaningful difference" means that we won't have to wait two years for the next expansion, meaning that the pandas should be released at some point around may or june, most likely.

For a game maker, they are one in the same. What you're trying to do is determine what definition of "is" they are using. Further, they made the game sooooooooo easy and dumbed down, that only 28 guilds have actually fully cleared all the content.

u act like the actual raid encounter is difficult for the individual. the only part thats been hard about raiding,ever, has been finding 9/24/39 other people that arent complete downies.

I do NOT like the old class quests because mine (apparently you never did the Warlock paladin ones)ALL sucked; mount quest was boring and just expensive back then. And the gear/spell quests were also not special. Doing a quest that has your friends 15 minutes waiting for you while levelling because you need item/spell X is NOT cool.

About the DK quest lines: yes, agree, I loved them the first time. However, I see players asking for class quests, not class zones with class factions, class cities and class... You get the point. Also, the DK zone proves my third point.

Class quests are a huge time sink, with all that money and effort wasted for a single run for just 1 class. And THAT is my real problem with class quests.
Why the hell would you make an investment like the DK starting zone for every single class? So we can all play trough it just once? That doesn't seem to be a very good model for an MMO.

It was meant to be expensive and time consuming. Level 60 was end game. It would be the equivalent of constructing Shadowmourne.

It was meant to be expensive and time consuming. Level 60 was end game. It would be the equivalent of constructing Shadowmourne.

The blood elf paladin mount quest was not a level 60 endgame quest. It was a level 60 quest whereas level 70 was endgame.
The exorcism quest was also NOT a level 60 quest.
Did I mention the hammer allies got (get?) around level 20?
And so on.

Looks like you do everything on the PTRs... wonder why you get bored with live servers... lol

Nah I don't usually play PTR's all the time other than 4.1 cause DK frost was bad ass there. But for 4.3 cause of the Transmorgifier I can't wait to try it out and see my DK in Pala Judgement gear look-a-like from BC. and The Grand Marshal Claymore pvp wep

The blood elf paladin mount quest was not a level 60 endgame quest. It was a level 60 quest whereas level 70 was endgame.
The exorcism quest was also NOT a level 60 quest.
Did I mention the hammer allies got (get?) around level 20?
And so on.

You're complaining about the blood elf mount quest? That thing was a joke. Kill a few things in EPL. Kill a few things just inside Stratholme. I thought you were complaining about stuff that was actually difficult and or time consuming but you're complaining about the easy stuff. Give me a break.

It's not like you HAD to do that. You could of course just buy the mount skill at level 60 like your friends did if they couldn't be bothered to help (they obviously like complaining more).

If you're talking about the alliance hammer quest, every paladin I knew looked forward to it because it was a level 30 weapon that you could get a level 20 with a bit of help. Given how long it took to level then, it was worth every bit of effort.

BTW who the hell knew you were referring to the blood elf quests when you specifically mentioned warlock in the same breath which implied the original Scholomance/Dire Maul paladin quest?

Oh come on, yeh, working on a legendary with a guild is the EXACT SAME THING as having a warlock specific class chain with some kind of epic at the end. THE EXACT SAME. Come on man, wake up.

Thanks. Yes, there's a difference between legendary quests and class quests. For one, except for the time sink or RNG aspect, nobody stops you from doing the legendary quest on all your toons. I'm raiding MC every week with two friends: We've built our second Thunderfury two months ago.

You're complaining about the blood elf mount quest? That thing was a joke. Kill a few things in EPL. Kill a few things just inside Stratholme. I thought you were complaining about stuff that was actually difficult and or time consuming but you're complaining about the easy stuff. Give me a break.

If you're talking about the alliance hammer quest, every paladin I knew looked forward to it because it was a level 30 weapon that you could get a level 20 with a bit of help. Given how long it took to level then, it was worth every bit of effort.

Oh, I am sorry, I did not know that not all class quests count as class quests? Wait, what?

Also, yes, it was fun to have an item to look forward too, then again, having to do crappy shit like this while levelling (thus leaving your mates behind) was NEVER fun in my opinion.
Also, the only level 60 class chains I digged were the hunter and priest series, but again, SINGLE PLAYER ONLY (you know what I mean). Yay, two classes. How is that not a waste of time? Try giving me a reply on that, in stead of telling me what class quests I can and cannot complain about.

Class quests are a huge time sink, with all that money and effort wasted for a single run for just 1 class. And THAT is my real problem with class quests.
Why the hell would you make an investment like the DK starting zone for every single class? So we can all play trough it just once? That doesn't seem to be a very good model for an MMO.
This is the point, not whether I liked a single quest or not.

Thanks. Yes, there's a difference between legendary quests and class quests. For one, except for the time sink or RNG aspect, nobody stops you from doing the legendary quest on all your toons. I'm raiding MC every week with two friends: We've built our second Thunderfury two months ago.

Not many people get legendaries, especially not the current ones. Real raiders are not the majority, I would say more people did the class quests than raiders doing the legendary chains.
Get used to the fact that resources will be spent on something you do not care about, I haven't raided for ages now and yet Blizzard puts huge amount of resources into raiding and you wont see me complain.

You guys are just wannabe hardcore raiders demanding unique mounts, quests, items and when those damn scrubs get a freaking class quest you go "LOL USELESS". This is a mmoRPG, atmosphere and flavor play a huge part in this game.

Not many people get legendaries, especially not the current ones. Real raiders are not the majority, I would say more people did the class quests than raiders doing the legendary chains.
Get used to the fact that resources will be spent on something you do not care about, I haven't raided for ages now and yet Blizzard puts huge amount of resources into raiding and you wont see me complain.

You guys are just wannabe hardcore raiders demanding unique mounts, quests, items and when those damn scrubs get a freaking class quest you go "LOL USELESS". This is a mmoRPG, atmosphere and flavor play a huge part in this game.

I am just a dude who has fun with the game (yes, including raiding, but I come from a pvp background). All I am actually advocating, a point you seem to miss, is the part where this is a MMOrpg, working as a team and playing together play a huge part in this game. If you want to do stuff alone there are loads of quests and achievements and dailies out there. Wanna do epic single player quests? Just install Dragon Age or whatever it's name is.

Btw, while we are making assumptions, you are obviously one of those "turn wow into a single player game freaks". Bah. Get yourself a guild or make some friends on your realm, I achieved a lot of fun and met a few cool people that way over the years. THAT way you can play with others, and then you will no longer need a class quest.

I am just a dude who has fun with the game (yes, including raiding, but I come from a pvp background). All I am actually advocating, a point you seem to miss, is the part where this is a MMOrpg, working as a team and playing together in stead of alone play a huge part in this game. Wanna do epic single player quests? Just install Dragon Age or whatever it's name is.

Btw, while we are making assumptions, you are obviously one of those "turn wow into a single player game freaks". Bah. Get yourself a guild or make some friends on your realm, I achieved a lot of fun and met a few cool people that way over the years. THAT way you can play with others, and then you will no longer need a class quest.

Blizzard redid all 1-60 content which is pretty much all solo except the dungeons. Blizzard also did Gilneas, which is completely pointless for non worgens or worgens above lvl 10.

Blizzard > you and stop acting like class quests take 10000 hours, Blizzard is just greedy which they have proves a lot during this expansion and 900k players agree.

Blizzard redid all 1-60 content which is pretty much all solo except the dungeons. Blizzard also did Gilneas, which is completely pointless for non worgens or worgens above lvl 10.

Blizzard > you and stop acting like class quests take 10000 hours, Blizzard is just greedy which they have proves a lot during this expansion and 900k players agree.

No need to tell me there is too much single player content in the game as it is man. You forgot about the goblin starting zone btw, which we cannot even reach. Then again, here we go AGAIN with the ZONES. We are discussing QUESTS here, are we not? How is a RACE starting zone the same as a SINGLE CLASS QUEST CHAIN. This cannot be THAT hard, is it now?
Those 900 are just the tards that yelled that WotLK was to easy and then quit because blizzard listened to them and made raiding and gearing "hard" again (turns out NOT feeding players epics makes them go QQ harder then giving them for free to them). These forums create a HUGE pile of hate (and always HAVE done that) towards the game, especially by people not even playing the game anymore (check the poll from a few days back!). Luckily Blizzard doesn't rely on this site only (altough I am sure that they read stuff), something you seem to do a tad too much.
See, I can make up facts too. Mine are better then yours though. That is a fact.
Well, who is right now? Me? Or you? Probably me.